On Garib Rath Coaches Withdrawn from Services

PM Garib Rath Coaches Withdrawn from Services

I have had reliable second-hand experience on Garib Rath – my wife travelled from Chennai to Hazrat Nizamuddin station in New Delhi, which is like the appendix of a major junction, here the New Delhi Railway Station. This was at least a decade ago, not very long after the service was introduced.

I went to the station to receive her and the train did not arrive at the appointed time (accommodating the mandated one hour beyond the ETA). And, none behind the counters had even an idea that such a train is running, much less when the train would arrive. I waited another one hour before there was an announcement that it would be delayed by six hours. So that left me with four more hours of waiting. I unwillingly bore the expense−both time and money−of going home and coming back (that gave me a clear relaxing time of 2 hours!). 

Well, the train was further delayed by half hour, and finally it chugged in, puffing and panting. The particular passenger (my wife) had a horrific time, no food, awful toilet and many other severe infirmities in service. I tried pacifying her saying, “After all, it was ‘Garib Rath’, travelling by it you have identified yourself as one of the garibis and you have no right to complain!” My attempt at humour merely aggravated her. That was my only experience with Garib Rath, thus far, and per news reports, I won’t have any more opportunities.

The ICF-made coaches of Garib Rath have been withdrawn last year, I learned, and in their place the Link Hoffman Busch (LHB) coaches have been introduced. I have travelled by these coaches and the difference is like between day and night. But, the ICH-made coaches were not condemned. They were used in the so-called Special Trains Indian Railways (IR) runs to accommodate surging crowds on account of some religious event at a particular holy place. This is the kind of respect given to Indian Hindu pilgrims. Go figure, even as religious tourism is large enough to demand a separate heading in the accounting by the Finance Ministry, within the hospitality (services) sector!

As an engineer by training, I noticed that the wheels of LHB coaches have a larger diameter and the links between two coaches are very short, a worker may possibly able to squeeze through. When I tried to indicate these details and how these may improve her travel comfort to a sixteen year old when she was travelling to Mumbai from Delhi, she sort of dismissed the matter. This is the perfect example of scientific ill-temper! I have digressed.

Recently I read that the Railway Board has received complaints on the ICF-made coaches even from travellers on the Special Trains, such devotees looking a gift horse in its mouth. So, finally, these have been condemned. The next time when you travel by train, look for abandoned coaches in the shunting yards of major stations, like between Basin Bridge and Chennai Central, you know how they were used to transport cattle, as Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar so famously called out the economy class on flights as cattle class! We would never know why IR hadn’t auctioned off these for scrap.

Good for Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar when he travels by train−if he were ever to do, like for reaching some half-village half-town places in his constituency−by an upgraded cattle class coach!

Raghuram Ekambaram